The Traitor's Tale Read online

  THE TRAITOR'S TALE

  Jonathan Moeller

  ***

  Description

  A thousand years ago, the sorceress Antenora betrayed Arthur Pendragon and the last Keeper of Avalon, but was cursed by dark magic for her folly.

  After a thousand years of regret and pain, Antenora is desperate to redeem herself...and her chance has come at last.

  But the Frostborn stand in her way, and even all of Antenora's magic might not be enough to overcome their terrible power...

  ***

  The Traitor's Tale

  Copyright 2015 by Jonathan Moeller.

  Smashwords Edition.

  Cover image copyright Federico Marsicano | Dreamstime.com & catiamadio | Dreamstime.com.

  Ebook edition published March 2015.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

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  Chapter 1: The Curse

  I cannot remember my name, not after fifteen centuries, but I do know that I am a traitor.

  The human mind was never meant to contain so much time, and many of my memories have faded into nothingness. I cannot remember my childhood, nor the names and faces of my parents, nor the taste of food or the pleasure of the wind upon my face. All this has been lost to me.

  Yet I remember my betrayal well enough.

  I was the Keeper of Avalon’s apprentice, her student and her confidant. Yet when Mordred Pendragon rose in rebellion against the High King Arthur Pendragon, wielding dark magic as a lesser man might wield a sword, I was seduced to Mordred’s side. For I was a vain and foolish young woman, believing power to be my birthright, and Mordred’s flattering words spoke to the poison in my heart. I betrayed the High King and the Keeper, and became Mordred’s advisor and his lover.

  But he, too, betrayed me, stealing my power to fuel his own and leaving me to die. Mordred and Arthur slew each other upon the field of Camlann, and I was left cursed. I would never age, but I would never again known pleasure or pain, and my flesh grew pale and corpselike. My magic fled from me, and I was left with no power save that of the magic of fire.

  In desperation and regret, I fled to the Keeper’s side, but it was too late. Malahan Pendragon, the High King’s bastard grandson, rallied the remnants of Arthur’s realm to his side. The Keeper opened a gate of magic, a portal to another world, and Malahan and the survivors withdrew through the gate to a new world and escaped the pagan Saxons.

  And the gate closed, leaving me behind forever.

  For a time I despaired. But the curse the Keeper and Mordred’s treachery had left upon me ensured that I would never die, and eventually I moved past the despair. The Keeper had left Britannia and Earth, but I tried to take up her mantle, using my limited powers to fight dark magic as she had once done.

  I had a great deal of work to do. The history of Earth after the departure of the Keeper and the death of Arthur Pendragon was long and bloody, and tyrant after tyrant arose, many of them in league with the powers of darkness. I did what I could, trying to defend the mortals of Earth from dark magic. I also sought after magical secrets and ancient spells, trying to find how the Keeper had left Earth for a new world with Malahan Pendragon.

  How I might find her and beg her forgiveness for my crimes.

  For fifteen centuries I searched in vain. As the years piled on and became decades and then centuries, I forgot so much. I forgot entire centuries, learned languages and forgot them again. I even forgot my own name. Around the fourteenth century in Italia, I encountered a poet named Dante and heard him speak of heaven and hell and the realms beyond. After hearing his great poem, I called myself Antenora, after the circle of hell where traitors met their fate. For I was a traitor, and no matter how many centuries passed, no matter how many new horrors I saw, no matter how many memories disappeared into the abyss of time, I never forgot my betrayal and my crimes. They remained as bright and as vivid as if I had committed them yesterday.

  I never stopped seeking for the Keeper, never stopped looking for a way to find her.

  And then, one day, the answer was given to me.

  I sensed a tremendous disturbance in the threshold, the shadow that Earth cast upon the spiritual realm, the ghostly double and mirror of the material world. I had lost much of my magic, but I still possessed the ability to travel to the threshold. There I found a magical gate opening, a bridge between two worlds, and for a desperate moment I thought that the Keeper might be returning. But this gate had been wrought using dark magic, fell and malevolent, and I released that the Keeper could not be behind it.

  Worse, some dark force was preparing to come through the gate and seize Earth.

  Then I met Morigna and Mara in the threshold, and they told me the truth.

  They were from a realm they called Andomhaim, and they were companions of the Keeper. Not the Keeper I knew, for she had died centuries earlier, but her heir and successor. A sorcerer of tremendous power called the Warden had taken her captive, and would burn her soul to open the gate and conquer Earth. Morigna and Mara had escaped the Warden’s bonds through cunning (mostly Mara’s, I suspected, for she seemed the cleverer of the two), but found themselves trapped in Earth’s threshold. The Warden’s spell had joined Earth’s threshold to that of Andomhaim, bridging the tremendous void between the two worlds, and soon the Warden would open the gate to allow physical passage, killing the Keeper in the process.

  I could not allow this.

  Mara possessed the power to move both her and Morigna back to Andomhaim. I fought to defend them as she summoned the power, for the threshold is a dangerous place. The power of the Warden’s gate had drawn the creatures I called “cockroaches” like maggots to rotting flesh. They were spirit creatures, shape shifters, quick and strong and deadly, and they feasted upon both magical power and the life force of mortals.

  I fought them with all the rage and power I could summon. I would not be denied now! The Warden’s gate was not yet open, but the thresholds of Earth and Andomhaim were joined. Once Mara and Morigna returned to defend the Keeper, I would follow them. If necessary, I would aid the Keeper, and then I would beg her forgiveness.

  First, though, I had to defeat the cockroaches.

  The curse meant I would never die…but that did not mean I could not be killed.

  ***

  Chapter 2: Cockroaches

  I stood in the threshold, my staff in hand, and watched the cockroaches approach.

  Behind me blazed the ghostly blue flame of the Warden’s gate, magic so potent and deadly I could scare comprehend it. Around me wavered the mists and illusions of the threshold. Specifically, I stood in the threshold’s reflection of Londinium (I suppose it is called London in the modern era), the shadows of the city’s people walking past me, heedless of the battle raging through the threshold half a heartbeat from them. When I had first seen Londinium long ago, it had been a proper Roman city of brick and concrete, with a forum and a magistrates’ basilica and an amphitheater. Now it was a gleaming metropolis of glass and polished steel, its streets paved in black tar to support automobiles, its people clad in sleek garments of black and white.

  The cockroaches wore forms in imitation of them, clad in black suits with white shirts, black ties hanging from their collars. The resemblance to humanity ended there. Their hands were claws of gleaming black chitin, and their faces were a gh
astly combination of squid and insect. They made crooning, croaking sounds as they approached me, dozens of them fanning out in a half-circle. I backed towards the gate, my long black coat flowing around me in the cold wind coming from the Warden’s magic. I saw the cockroaches’ tactics well enough. Individually, they were cowardly creatures. Together, they could summon a measure of courage, rushing me in hopes that one of the others would fall.

  I struck my black staff against the ground, the sigils I had carved into its length flaring with harsh yellow-orange light.

  I had lost most of my magic long ago. I still possessed the Sight, the ability to see the flows of magical power around me. Once I had been able to command the elements of water and wind, of stone and earth, but that power had left me. I could still command fire, could still summon elemental flame to do my bidding, but I could use it to do nothing but destroy.

  I could work only destruction with my magic…but I had had fifteen centuries to practice, and I had gotten very good at it.

  My staff blazed with fire, and I swept it before me. A curtain of howling flame erupted from the street, spreading eighty feet in either direction. I shouted and thrust my staff, my will driving the magic forward, and the curtain of flame rolled into the charging cockroaches. The fire was not particularly hot, not when spread over such a large area, but it was hot enough for what I needed. The outer shells of the charging cockroaches caught flame, and they fell back with horrid shrieks, trying to fight the elemental fire that chewed into their corrupted flesh.

  But the older cockroaches, the more powerful ones, the ones that had feasted on many lives, were not so easily daunted. They had the ability to wield minor magic themselves, and they cast spells to ward themselves against flame. They pushed through the wall of flame, step by step, like men forcing their way through a gale. My firestorm would not last for much longer, and if those cockroaches reached me, they would tear me apart.

  It would take something more serious to deal with them.

  I took several quick steps back, feeling the storm of the Warden’s gate. I raised the blackened staff in my right hand and concentrated, its sigils flaring. A tight sphere of white-hot flame, perhaps three inches across, appeared at the end of the staff. My ancient flesh felt neither pleasure nor pain, but nonetheless I could feel the sheer heat of the little sphere pulsing against me. I poured more strength into the sphere, all the flame and magic I could summon, forcing the power into the enclosed construct. The sphere began to swell, wobbling and spinning, until it was almost the size of my head.

  The greater cockroaches had almost forced their way through my wall of flame, the gray light of their wards flickering around them. I turned and ran, my coat flapping around my legs, the increasingly unstable sphere of fire spinning above my staff faster and faster. A hideous shriek ran out, and I looked over my shoulder as the first of the greater cockroaches burst from the dwindling wall of flame. Six others followed, and they changed shapes again as they charged, their bodies twisting into a misshapen combination of squid and hunting insect. Their new shapes let them race forward in leaps and bounds, halving the distance between us in a matter of seconds.

  I stopped, turned, and planted my feet as I faced the charging creatures. The whirling sphere of white fire let out a steady hissing sound. I focused all my will and power upon the sphere, and thrust the staff.

  The sphere leaped from the staff in a lazy arc and struck the ground at the feet of the charging cockroaches.

  There was a blinding flash of white light, followed by a tremendous thunderclap and a howling gale of hot wind. I staggered several steps, my coat snapping out behind me like a banner caught in the wind. I saw one of the cockroaches go tumbling high overhead, shrieking madly, fire devouring its limbs and tentacles. Three more of the creatures had been reduced to charred piles of smoking coals, while a few more ran back and forth, desperately fighting the flames devouring their flesh. My wall of flame had faded, but the surviving creatures had seen enough. The cockroaches fled in all directions, leaving behind dozens slain by my fire.

  I lowered my staff and let out a long breath. Not that I actually needed to breathe very much, but the old habits of battle never went away. The cockroaches would be back soon enough. They were cowardly, but once they had gathered sufficient numbers they would return. By then, I hoped to be long gone.

  To the new world of the Keeper.

  I wondered what it would be like. Both Morigna and Mara had spoken Latin, albeit with a peculiar accent and occasional unfamiliar words, but it had nonetheless been the style of Latin that had been spoken in Britannia fifteen centuries past. Clearly Malahan and the Keeper had taken their language to this new realm of theirs, to Andomhaim.

  I also wondered what they had found upon the new world. Mara had not been entirely human. The pointed ears had revealed her alien heritage, to say nothing of the power in her blood. I could travel to the threshold and back, but I had learned that ability from the Keeper in the days of Arthur Pendragon. Mara’s power was in her blood.

  I could puzzle over it later. The answers lay in Andomhaim.

  Assuming I survived the journey.

  I gripped my staff in both hands and concentrated. It took a great deal of magical power to phase from the material world to the threshold, and I expected it would take even more power to move from Earth’s threshold to that of Andomhaim. The staff glowed in my hands, and I used my magical Sight, reaching out to examine the flows of power around me. I felt the massive power of the Warden’s gate, and I saw the tendrils of magic that joined Earth’s threshold to Andomhaim’s. Even glancing at the tendrils filled me with fear. The Warden was a sorcerer of tremendous might, stronger than anyone I had ever encountered, and the complexity of the spells proved that he had the skill to match his power.

  He was stronger than the Keeper. Had Malahan and the Keeper gone to their new world only to become slaves of the Warden and other sorcerers like him?

  It didn’t matter. I had to find the Keeper. If I had to fight through a dozen sorcerers of the Warden’s power, it did not matter.

  Suddenly I felt the connection slipping away. The Warden’s gate was collapsing. That meant Mara and Morigna had been successful, that they had rescued the Keeper from the Warden’s spell. Unfortunately, the thresholds of the two worlds would remain joined for only a few moments longer. Once the connection was broken, I could never follow. I could study for another ten thousand years, gather every scrap of magical knowledge upon Earth, and I would still never have the strength to open a gate between worlds, or to even find Andomhaim among the uncounted billions of stars that populated the cosmos.

  I drew in more power, as much as I could safely handle and then some, and as I did something cold brushed against my magical senses.

  I turned my head, sparing as much attention from the spell as I could manage, and saw the wraith flowing towards me.

  It looked fashioned out of black smoke and darker shadow, a suggestion of a hooded figure in its flowing depths. The farther one went from the threshold of Earth, the further into the darkness you went…and there waited creatures like the cowled wraith flowing towards me. It came from the dark voids between the worlds, and it fed upon death. They only came to the mortal world during times of great slaughter, when the deaths of millions allowed them to gorge.

  Europe had been crawling with them during the Black Death, and again in the first half of the twentieth century. Come to think of it, I had seen quite a few wraiths during the twentieth century. Consequently I knew how to deal with the vile things, and I could have blasted it back to the airless void between the stars with a single spell.

  But to do that, I would have to abandon the spell that would take me to Andomhaim’s threshold, and I would not have time to work it again before the connection was lost.

  So I gritted my teeth and kept summoning power as the cowled wraith flowed towards me. It hesitated, considering me like a wolf examining a wounded deer.

  A cold, hissing voice
echoed inside my head.

  “Little sorceress,” said the voice. “I can hear you. So much pain. So much regret. Come to me and you will never know pain again.”

  I said nothing.

  “Do you think you can find redemption for your sins?” said the voice. The wraith began circling me, preparing to pounce. “You threw a mighty realm into ruin with your lust. You were a foolish, blind girl, a proud whore used by a man who discarded you once were of no further use. Because of your pride and lust, thousands upon thousands died.”

  My staff trembled beneath my fingers. Almost there.

  “And how many more deaths lie upon your hands?” said the voice, its icy words digging deeper into my head. “You saw what happened when Arthur’s realm fell. The Western Empire collapsed into chaos and barbarism for centuries. What might have happened if Arthur Pendragon’s realm had stood? Perhaps the destiny of Earth might have changed. All the horrors you have seen might never have come to pass. The killing fields. The extermination camps. The wars that slaughtered millions. The engines of destruction that can kill millions in the blink of an eye. All that might have been averted had you not let Mordred Pendragon lure you into his bed.”

  I scoffed. I had watched mankind for fifteen centuries, and I knew that it was the nature of men to form tribes and wage war upon each other. Even if Arthur Pendragon had died of old age in his bed, even if his son had taken the throne of Britannia in peace, there would have been war and plague and suffering. It was simply the nature of man.

  Yet the spirit’s words held enough truth that they stung nonetheless.

  “I shall put you out of your misery,” said the cowled wraith, flowing closer. “I shall feast upon your pain and your very soul, and leave you with nothing but oblivion forevermore.”

  The staff began vibrating in my hand.

  “Bah,” I said, and I sensed a flicker of puzzlement from the wraith. “Do you know what your problem is, spirit? The same problem shared by all spirits. You talk too much.”